What were you doing 21 years ago today ? I was meeting Lady Diana and launching Videophones!

21 years ago there was no digital footprint ideas so there is no digital trace or record, but I do have the press cutting that got me into a lot of trouble.  I had no idea back then how advanced the technology was as it seemed normal to me or how long it would take to generate adoption.   Of interest to me is that the big issue of the day was privacy ( you answer the phone and someone can see you, can they remotely switch on the camera and look round my home).  I have never appeared to escape the clutches of privacy issues.

The context is; I was working at GEC Marconi on Videophones with Tom, Dave, Mark, Alvin, Rob and Andy, Andy , Les to name a few of the team.  I was at the Ideal Home exhibition in London and on the BT stand and launching the Videophone.

The Relate 2000 videophone was the first one BT made commercially. It promised callers the chance to see, and be seen by, the person they were talking to. It featured a flip-up screen on the right, where the video played driven - by privacy issues. They were available for £399. The colour Liquid Crystal Display is a 2.9" screen which displays the incoming video signal at a rate of 8 frames per second. Unfortunately picture quality generally proved to be poor and the videophone was not popular.

If anyone is interested in a little bit of history I still have the plastic models, artist impressions, marketing specification document and the original research – including my analysis….   I have one of the videophone if anyone else out there does and wants to see if they still work but be warned Skype is better.

Full circle I still work with Andy and this week we launched Innovation Warehouse in Portsmouth.

Here is the full article.